Education

After reviewing a plethora of school needs across Lancaster County, school district officials settled this week on $199 million as the amount of a proposed capital projects bond.
The largest items on the bond list are two new schools in Indian Land – a high school and an elementary – though the list also includes numerous projects for schools throughout the county.
Details about the projects, and a final bond amount to eventually present to voters, were revealed during a special Lancaster County school board meeting Dec. 8.

INDIAN LAND – Family and friends remember Patty Bridges as a loving matriarch, thoughtful friend, engaged church member and longtime Indian Land Elementary School teacher who put her heart into teaching children how to read.
Bridges retired in May after 20 years of classroom teaching, celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary with her husband, Ross, on Sept. 6, and was making plans to move to the North Carolina coast near family. As a “Gram,” she took great joy in her grandchildren, Boyd, 8, and Emeson, 6.

When most people think about earning a perfect score, their minds immediately turn to student report cards or SAT results, but what about when it involves a school’s food handling procedures?
For cafeteria workers at 17 schools throughout the Lancaster County School District, a perfect score is exactly what they earned during a recent series of cafeteria and kitchen inspections by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

A statewide report shows Lancaster County students fared better on the 2015 SAT, with mean scores for local high school seniors rising by several points compared to last year.
According to S.C. Department of Education data released last month, Lancaster County School District seniors saw a 15-point increase in their 2015 SAT mean scores.
Lydia Quinn, executive director of planning and accountability for the Lancaster County School District, said the mean 1363 score was for the 415 of the 2015 district seniors who took the SAT.

Students at Discovery School and members of the Habitat board of directors braved the rain on Monday, Oct. 5, to celebrate World Habitat Day and Lancaster Habitat Day. Student artists painted the school rock with their own original design to recognize Habitat and Chucky Rivers, lead teacher, taught the students about Habitat and World Habitat Day.

With several large, color diagrams in hand, Jimmy Wilhide presented school district officials with an update on a crucial expansion to Indian Land Middle School on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
Wilhide, with Charlotte-based architectural design firm Moseley Architects, discussed the planned expansion and renovation project during Lancaster County school board’s latest meeting.
Flipping through multiple slides, Wilhide showed school board members several architectural drawings demonstrating the various additions and expansions planned for the school.

Lancaster County school board members approved a timeline Tuesday, Sept. 22, for a proposed bond referendum to pay for capital projects at county schools.
Action on the bond referendum during Tuesday night’s work session comes as the school district wraps up a decade’s worth of improvements at the district’s 22 schools and faces a growing need for more schools in Indian Land.
Tuesday night’s unanimous vote set in motion a process Lancaster County School District officials hope will result in a public vote on the matter as early as spring.

With the Panhandle’s housing market in full swing and its schools rapidly filling to capacity, do Lancaster County school district officials have a plan in place to address issues such as overcrowding?
That was just one of the questions on Pam Mulvaney’s mind as she and several other concerned Indian Land parents showed up en masse during Lancaster County School Board’s meeting Tuesday night, Sept. 15.

Students at Harrisburg Elementary School in Indian Land are on track to raise $50,000 during a Boosterthon event, which the PTO plans to use to buy library books and Chromebook computers for the school’s fourth and fifth-grade classes.During the Boosterthon, students run laps and earn a dollar amount per lap pledged by their family and friends.

A ‘one-to-one’ technology program which helped equip students at a local middle school with their own Chromebook devices may eventually expand to the largest school in the district, Lancaster High School.
School district officials discussed applying for state budget proviso funding to help expand the program during Lancaster County school board’s Aug. 18 meeting.